Samsonite suitcase dropped from 40 km: it hit the ground and survived
Luggage maker Samsonite has enlisted the help of agency Sent Into Space to send its flagship Proxis Global Carry-on Spinner into the stratosphere and from there “drop” the suitcase to the ground, on a rocky mountainside. The goal was to test the suitcase’s frame for strength, the magazine writes. Travel + Leisure.
Photo: Archangel80889 | Dreamstime.com
The suitcase was dropped from an altitude of 130 feet (000 km). Yes, technically this is not space yet (that starts at an altitude of 40 km), but it is four times higher than passenger planes fly. After the fall, both the body of the suitcase and even its wheels remained intact. Having flown through the atmosphere and hit a mountainside in Nevada, the suitcase passed the test with flying colors.
“I knew this project was going to be extraordinary. It wasn’t just about sending something into space. It was about doing the world’s most extreme drop test. It was a real challenge,” said Dr Chris Rose, head of projects and business development at Sent Into Space. “It was asking me to slam a suitcase into a mountain.”
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Samsonite approached him with the request to make the test as “extreme” and “aggressive” as possible. Dr. Rose said the brand asked him to drive a suitcase down a rocky mountainside to see how well it would withstand a fall.
"I'm glad we were able to find a suitable mountainside," said Chris Rose.
The customers set the conditions: the suitcase had to be completely exposed to the elements. It had to test a case made of a multi-layer, highly sensitive, lightweight material that could restore its shape after being exposed to force.
“It’s very strong but extremely light, and it’s this balance of weight and strength that gives it its stability,” explained Ulliyada Bopanna, vice president of design and innovation at Samsonite.
The company has been making durable suitcases since 1910. Now, with the prospect of commercial space travel in the offing, the brand has its sights set on the stars – literally.
With the help of Sent Into Space, a “space marketing agency” that catapults products more than 30 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, the travel brand decided to drop the Proxis Global Carry-on Spinner, Samsonite’s lightest and most durable suitcase, from 40 kilometers to see if it could survive the fall.
Oddly enough, Bopanna said one of the most pressing concerns was the weight of the suitcase: “Will it even fall over?”
Safety and environmental impact were key concerns for both Samsonite and Sent Into Space, Dr Rose said.
"We could put the suitcase on board the rocket, but that would not be as environmentally friendly," he explained.
Instead, Sent Into Space engineers used a modern balloon-powered spacecraft that uses renewable hydrogen gas rather than helium, a limited resource, to lift the suitcase into the stratosphere.
“The most important thing,” he emphasized, “is that we leave nothing in space and we leave nothing on the ground.”
As with previous launches, the Sent Into Space team equipped Proxis with a 4K camera system and an onboard computer, using satellite and radio communications to closely track Proxis' flight path and the atmospheric conditions it passed through.
After successfully reaching the stratosphere, Proxis was first lowered at a controlled speed using a self-deploying parachute system. Shortly after, the suitcase went into free fall and crashed into the ground, hitting its wheels and then landing on its side.
These wheels, Bopanna explained, were held in place by Samsonite's patented suspension technology.
"We have built the equivalent of a shock absorber into the fork," he explained. "The material the fork is made of is our own unique development."
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When the suitcase crashed, Dr. Rose and his team drove all night to the crash site, hoping for the best but keeping reasonable expectations. They were pleased to find that the suitcase had emerged from the experiment unscathed. According to Dr. Rose, there were no scratches or visible damage to the handle, the exterior, or even the wheels, which had taken the brunt of the impact.
Bopanna hopes that Samsonite will become the luggage brand that future space tourists will trust on their galactic journeys.
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